She said – I’ve been watching you for a long, long time Jane, and now it IS time for you to include the teachings of this Land into what you teach, its time for you to teach this stuff.

She said – the aim is to ensure all women gain spiritual strength to empower all other women – now is the time Jane, this is how it has to happen…….

Minmia is a Wirradjirri woman. ‘Wirradjirri country runs from Dunedoo in New South Wales right down into Victoria, and from the Blue Mountains to Lake Cargelligo bordering Parkingee country. It’s country for the biggest tribe in New South Wales. This is the riverland of the Murrumbidgee, Killara (Lachlan) and Macquarie Rivers.’

Meet me at the Blue Heron

And I did, mid morning after the 4 hour drive from my home to hers. I met her son, she had a coffee and then we went to the supermarket to buy our food for the next few days together out on her property. Two grandmas wandering around the supermarket aisles chattering away, imagining what we would want to eat….and so the transmission began.

The plan was to camp on her property far up in the hills behind Moruya on the NSW South Coast of Australia and for me to receive the information that she said I was ready for. I felt drawn into her orbit as she began to talk and talk, me writing as fast as I could. Minmia’s passion for the subjects she was instructing me in fueled her knowing that she had to talk to me…

I’ve been watching you for a long, long time Jane, I see from the colours of the women who come… Seeing the women, I knew I had to see Jane. Its time for you to include the teachings of this land into what you teach.

So what was beginning here up in the hills, as we sat for hours, was Minmia ensuring and fulfilling her role as a Wirrloo (a powerful woman healer; a teacher of the lore/law) in making sure the lore or stories and the law or necessary practices for maintaining the wellbeing of beings, no longer remained secret.

She said some of her people are all for this and some are not, and most importantly – I know exactly what I’m doing, its important that women know this information now, its time for the secrets to be over.

She told me – you tell ‘em – Jane is going to do as she’s instructed to by Minmia, and Jane is born of this land.

Many of us have been taught by Minmia over the years, at her workshops and through her book Under the Quandong Tree, and for me, way back when I first met Minmia at one of her workshops in 2010, the most significant thing I heard her say to me was that I belonged…..

If you are born of this land,

you are of this land,

and therefore you are entitled to the teachings of this land by birth. And for those not born of this land they can belong by doing the Rebirthing Ceremony (more on that later).

As book her says …
I want to bring back the songs.
I want to bring back the stories.
I want to bring back the sense of belonging.
I want to help with the healing.
That’s what I want.

For me, a white woman searching for my defining spiritual roots, so often asking this very question, where do I belong? – this meant a lot. My ancestors are from England and Europe, I am indigenous to that land, yet I live here in another hemisphere, like most of the population – far from my ancestral roots floating in some sort of who am I, where do I belong fog …

If you are born of this land, you are of this land, and therefore you are entitled to the teachings of this land by birth.

…sweet music to my longing soul.

Belonging to this land means caring for Her, caring for the Earth – Nungeena-tya, and caring for all the inhabitants.

Tell the women, Minmia said, to be mindful of honouring The Mother (Earth), because that is where we get our true strength from.

And of course this is not just about me and other white people born in Australia belonging to Australia, its about all of us belonging to either the land we were born on or the land we have ceremonially declared as our land. The Birthing or Re-Birthing Ceremony that Minmia taught me, and many of us, that is featured in her book Under the Quandong Tree, is how she says we can do this. I will write more about this ceremony in my next blog.

Belonging to country, to the land, to our Earth, our Mother, is what we all need to feel and do, and of course, we do, and are, whether we know it or not! But it may not be that we feel like we belong, and this may stem from not feeling connected to many things including our family of origin, our own body and needs, our inner knowing, our path and purpose, our tribe …so many things.. and for so many reasons…

And as we know, this sense of belonging or not and connection or not, all starts at birth.

The opposite of belonging is isolation, perhaps from rejection, perhaps from rejecting. Humans are mammals and herd animals and one of our most basic needs is to belong to the herd for our safety. And sometimes the herd is not where we want to belong and so we search for our tribe. Our tribe, when we find it, likeminded folk, is a safe haven, a place to belong that then enables connection on every level. Intimacy is the cauldron of growth – and intimacy can only happen when one feels safe. Finding tribe has been the gift of The School of Shamanic Womancraft, each group of women together and then the group as a whole reaching around the world now…..

One of the practical ways women can consciously connect with the land where they live is though the spiritual practice of menstruation. When we women return our menstrual blood to the Earth we become connected to that place through our cells, our DNA. The land absorbs our blood, is nourished by our blood and recognises us; and we develop a ‘special’ relationship with that land, we care about it, tend it, protect it. Its actually what’s meant to be happening. Imagine if this simple practice, this act of respect for both our blood and our Earth, was done by all the bleeding women of the world…methinks there would be a change in how the Earth was treated. And women who no longer bleed have different work to do, more on that later…

So, thank you for reading this as I, with great honour and respect, share the teachings of the lineage of Minmia Wirrloo – Women’s Law, and their spiritual teachings of Oneness and how to achieve that, incorporating that into my practice and teaching of the old wise wild ways of being-ness, the wisdom of the cycles and the relevant spiritual practices for the times in one’s life, of the season, of the menstrual cycle, in a globally conscious pan-cultural way.

Sort of Earthling Human Female 1.01.

Common sense that’s not so common anymore…

More soon…

(i) Under the Quandong Tree by Minmia, p xv

(ii) Under the Quandong Tree by Minmia, available for purchase on her website www.minmia.com.au by emailing minmiabook@gmail.com

Jane, thank you. Minmia, deep thanks. As a white mama to children with Indigenous blood, I can sense that this series is going to help me in this navigation. From this blog, I am sensing also a coming together of traditions- for me, that would be the speaking of this land, and of my ancestral Celtic lands, and the richness and union there might exist within. Much love x

I have been spending time with Min Mia for the last few years. And I agree it is time to spread her teachings. I feel I have an obligation to share what she has taught me as a mark of respect, not only for her & her teachings but for Nungeena-tya as well. Look forward to reading more. Meanwhile my intention is to start running a few workshops in Dorrigo come spring.

Like to connect you Jane with Leyola One Feather Oglala Lakota medicine woman from Wounded Knee South Dakota….What you have to say and what you are doing is so important and we need to support each other through this transformation… we need the woman to lead our men into nurturing our mother… more woman in political power and positions that facilitate change is what we need … Leyola will be in Australia Dec-January 2016 -17
Yanahyule (I go but we continue)
Wayne

Jane, this is the key i have longed for and searched for as a midwife. How blessed are we that it is women who are beginning to share the indigenous lore. I am born in Australia and feel the connection to this land more than anywhere else.